Marietta City Schools shows art and music talents

MARIETTA – For folks who enjoy art or music, or just appreciate the talents of local students, the annual Marietta City Schools Fine Arts Festival is a one-stop destination.

“You can see the amazing artwork that people have done throughout the year, while also listening to the good music that people are performing,” said Marietta High School sophomore Tim Kelsey.

Prior to performing in the high school auditorium Thursday as a member of choir ensembles Cantabile and Premiere, Kelsey and friends were perusing paintings, drawings, sculptures and more works of art crafted by students around the district in first through 12th grade. Joining them to look at the items on display in the high school gym were hundreds of students, relatives and community members.

Marietta resident Nancy Seyler, 73, had grandchildren performing in musical numbers, but she also took a walk through the gym.

“I took art in college, so I really like to look at the older kids’ stuff too,” she said. “I think it’s great that they do this for the kids – make art a big thing instead of a nothing class.”

MHS senior Jordan Satterfield said he enjoys the opportunity to display his work for the public, from a sculpture of his brother to a pencil-drawn self-portrait.

“I think it’s a good way just to get people to express themselves … show people what they like to do,” he said.

Satterfield also served as an artistic display himself, with his clothes and face painted to resemble Vincent van Gogh in his “Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear.” He sat in front of a backdrop painted to resemble the rest of the portrait and virtually blended into the two-dimensional image in a technique known as a trompe l’oeil. High school art teacher Heath Rader first had a student inhabit a portrait in this way at the show in 2011.

Some youngsters in the crowd were asking their parents whether the man in the painting was a real person. Phillips third-grader Emma Tucker knew he was and pronounced the display “creepy.”

Tucker and her family were searching for some of the pieces she’s made over the last year. She figured a colorfully decorated tin can was included and thought there would be others as well.

“The reason why I probably have a lot of things in here is Miss Callendine knows I love art,” she said, referring to Phillips art teacher Jann Callendine.

The art teachers at the district’s schools chose the nearly 1,000 works being displayed, and they were selective, Rader said.

“That’s not watered down,” he said. “We take the best of what there is.”